Mets may absorb some salary to trade Bartolo Colon

The Mets, who are actively seeking to trade Bartolo Colon, Jon Niese, or Dillon Gee, may be willing to absorb a portion of Colon’s salary if it helps facilitate a deal.

Colon, 41, is due $11 million this coming season in the final year of a two-year deal.

For the Mets in 2014, Colon posted a 4.09 ERA (3.57 FIP) to go along with a 1.23 WHIP in 202.1 innings pitched (31 starts).

The Mets put out feelers on Colon prior to this past July’s non-waiver trade deadline and passed him through waivers to clear the way for a potential August deal, but nothing came to fruition.

Reports so far this offseason have indicated that teams are still not showing strong interest in acquiring Colon.

Thoughts:

I wrote recently that while there hasn’t been much interest in Colon, the reasoning given as to why was flawed.

Yes, Colon is 41 years old and not in the greatest shape, but he’s been both durable and productive over the last four seasons. What matters is performance, and it’s hard to argue with what Colon has done recently.

In that same article, I suggested that although the Mets shouldn’t have to, it would behoove them to pick up $3 million or so in order to deal Colon.

What the Mets would get back in return for Colon is unknown, but it isn’t expected that he’ll net the Mets the shortstop upgrade they’re looking for.

While there are those who will always utter the refrain that you can’t ever have too much pitching – which is true in a sense – the Mets currently have six major league starters for five spots, one minor league starter (Rafael Montero) who is big league ready, another minor league starter (Noah Syndergaard) who will likely be up by June, and a third (Steven Matz) who should be ready by the second half of the season.

A move needs to be made that allows the Mets to clear a starting pitcher, and Colon at $8 million for one year would be a solid bet for most teams in need of pitching.

As far as when the club might deal Colon or one of their other starting pitchers, it will likely have to wait until some of the starting pitching supply starts to get snatched up. Once Jon Lester signs – perhaps as soon as this weekend – other dominoes should start to fall.